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Triple-negative breast cancer is able to grow and spread more quickly than other forms of breast cancer.

Also, because its cancer cells lack hormone receptors, specialists cannot treat them with hormone therapy. The only treatment for these types of cancer is chemotherapy.

New research, however, has revealed that an existing drug could be repurposed to treat some of the people with this form of breast cancer.

Researchers led by John Hawse, Ph.D., a molecular biologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, tested the effects of estradiol on a subtype of triple-negative breast cancer tumors.

The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Estradiol and the estrogen receptor beta

"Triple-negative breast cancer is a form of breast cancer that lacks expression of estrogen receptor alpha, progesterone receptor, and [HER2]," explains Hawse, who adds that the condition "exhibits high rates of disease recurrence."

However, previous research by Hawse and team found that another form of estrogen receptor — called estrogen beta — is present in 25 percent of triple-negative tumors, as well as in over 30 percent of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer tumors.

That research also showed that the estrogen receptor beta is a tumor suppressor, which correlates with better patient outcomes.

In their new study, Hawse and his colleagues studied the effect of estradiol on the growth of triple-negative tumors that express estrogen receptor beta. The study included both in vitro and in vivo experiments.

"However, estradiol was only able to inhibit the growth of triple-negative breast cancer when estrogen receptor beta was present," he adds.

Additionally, the new research illuminates the molecular mechanism through which estradiol fights cancer. When estradiol binds with the estrogen receptor beta, explain the scientists, it induces the secretion of a family of proteins called "cystatins."

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